PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem knew he was going to be quizzed on the Dustin Johnson controversy in attending the Barclays Championship Media Center today.

It was the eighth question in 15-question in a formal conference with the head of golf’s grandest Tour.

Johnson has stood down in an indefinite period from all competition, and including the Ryder Cup, citing ‘personal challenges’.

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said the Tour ‘reserved the right’ to correct wrong information pertaining to Dustin Johnson’s leave of absence. (Photo – www.golfbytourmiss.com)

The controversy surrounding the American broke during the recent WGC – Bridgestone Invitational and with one website suggesting the troubled American had been suspended in failing a drugs test.

However it prompted the Tour, that normally and wrongly does not report such suspensions, to declare in a second statement concerning Johnson that that was not the case.

Finchem was asked if the Tour was asked if he felt Johnson is required to seek professional help to deal with the so-called ‘personal challenges’.

“We have no further comment,” said Finchem.

However given the Tour did issue a statement confirming Johnson had not been suspended Finchem was asked was this not ‘setting a precedent’ in responding to what appeared on www.golf.com

“Well, we reserve the right to comment on anything we want to comment about if we think it’s important to do so,” he said.

“In that case, we felt like the information that had floated in the media was incorrect and needed to be corrected.

“Same thing if a player characterized something that we weren’t comfortable with, we reserve the right to clarify it.  We might not clarify ti because we didn’t think it was very important, but we reserve the right to do so and that’s what we did in that case.”